People come together not to support the recall against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price
Supporters say lies by social media and media are giving rise to misinformation about the crime problems in the Bay Area
People who support Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price came together for a press conference at Geoffrey Inner Circle in late April to tell people that the recall was unnecessary and unhealthy. The people there spoke about the need to keep Price as district attorney. Price has not been in office for a year but faced a contingent of people demanding that she step down as district attorney.
“The anti-change forces started this recall before she even took office, and they've run a campaign so full of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and gotten this far and it's so alarming,” said Rivaa Polatnica, who supports Price by running a community-based social media campaign on her behalf.
Polatnica believes social media and local media are fueling the unnecessary disdain towards her.
“We never hear through the media about all the good things that DA Price is doing,” Polatnica explained. “All we hear are sensationalized rumors that get a lot of coverage. And when they turn out to be false, we don't hear about that.”
Pecolia Manigo, interim director of Oakland Rising Action, said Philip D. Dreyfuss, Neighbors Together Oakland, Empower Oakland, Bay Alarms, and Singer Associates are involved in a scheme to push out renters and poor people using politics.
“Why are there investment hedge leaders all of a sudden making ten and twenty and thirty thousand dollar contributions to candidates who are ultimately not grounded in what the community is saying?,” asked Manigo.
Manigo knows the names of the people involved in the recall by the passing of Measure W. The measure allows the public to access information on a politician’s “460s” or Recipient Committee Campaign Statement. These statements show the people who have raised more than $25,000 towards campaign funds. When residents receive mailers, Manigo suggests that they look at the bottom of the flyers so they will know who is funding these campaigns.
“Who is controlling the stories that you see on the news? Who's controlling the stories you hear on the radio? Who's controlling your YouTube content? And then when we get into the electoral campaigns, who's controlling those paid ads?, ”Manigo asks.
Manigo also stated that the recall is a way to strike fear in those who want to run, mainly renters, which is 60 percent of the population. “There's a concentrated effort to prevent that transformation,” said Manigo.
Former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said realtors support a recall because it helps their revenue margins.
“Those people are forced out through criminalization of poverty and underinvestment in the kinds of services that working families so desperately need,” said Boudin. “The real estate industry is in a position to make money off of it. And so they invest heavily in getting rid of somebody like Pamela Price or Chase, who is trying to keep all of our community members safe, who's trying to have a system of justice that works for everybody, not only the wealthy and the well-connected.”
One of the issues Pamela Price is being recalled for is perceived retail crime in the community. Boudin states the real reason these stores are not making money is because consumer needs have changed.
“People are doing more and more of their shopping online,” said Boudin. “It's more convenient. You can get better deals. And they're trying to blame retail thefts for what are broader changes in consumer behavior. And they're closing stores because it's expensive to maintain stores.”
Media and Politics
Manigo believes that local, established local news have forged destructive narratives. Boudin believes those narratives negatively impacted his political career. Manigo believes the stress and strain of living in the Bay Area distracts people from truly knowing what is going on in the community and the media helps fill that void in an unhealthy way.
“In a fast-paced world where we got to work really hard and grind so that we can stay housed, stay having food, stay having the things that we need like: water, electricity, transportation,” Manigo explained “People look at the news because they're like, ‘Okay, I just need to stay informed.’ So if the news is my outlet to see a quick and easy report on what's going on in my community, that's when I default to.”
According to Danielle Christenson, in her article “Victim Worthiness: The Effect of Media Coverage on the Portrayal of Homicide Victims,” the news is a financial entity and needs to make money “to appeal to a mass audience.” The newsworthy stories are about crime. The media angle of the crime, including murder, “minimizes the murder of African Americans and will rationalize inner-city violence.”
The author further states that there is media racial bias “in the portrayal of homicide victims due to extralegal factors of the victim and or the offender.”
One of the cases Pamela Price was criticized for is the drive by murder of Jesper Wu. The local media and people who supported the recall stated the family was upset with the sentencing of the people involved in the crime. At the press conference Stuart Chen stated that was not the case,“I spoke to mom and dad on multiple occasions. Her empathy is evident. Her stance on crime is simple. Those who commit crimes will face the consequences.”
Boudin believes he faced his recall because of the San Francisco media, which mostly reported on crime and drugs. “That kind of fear-mongering,” Boudin said, “and double standards we see all too often in news media coverage.”
“It's frustrating to me, as somebody who cares about victims,” said Boudin. “It's frustrating to me as somebody who cares about the justice system, democracy, and service to elected officials.”
CEO of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice George Galvis articulates the media biased perception of the police’s version of events. “They will just be out there and take the police press advisory and publish it without fact-checking it.”
Both district attorneys also see another threat -- white supremacy. Price stated constantly that “right wing forces” are trying to undermine her campaign. Boudin further elaborates on what she is saying.
“It is very problematic that many of the same forces that are opposing gun control are, at the same time, using concerns about public safety and violence in the community to justify overly punitive policies that destroy black and brown communities.”
Manigo believes that the role of the residents is to help them understand what is going on in the community.
“It's our job as messengers; as people; as people who are aware of the issues and have those hard conversations,” said Manigo. “[Residents can] host those types of events where people can have those real honest dialogues with each other and rebuild community trust that we actually have a shared analysis of what's going on and what solutions are actually necessary for us to advance,” she explained.